Recently, techniques associated with devices contained in computers and peripheral devices externally connected to the computers are rapidly developed with the development of the computer technology. As one of the above techniques, a disk device comprising a disk-form information storage medium such as a magnetic disk and having a function of recording information by writing information to the information storage medium and a function of reading information from the information storage medium to which the information is written to reproduce the information is known. Most of the above disk devices comprise head sliders including recording/reproducing portions (heads) that record and reproduce information (access information) with respect to information storage media. The head is positioned close to the surface of the information storage medium to record information in each storage area (track) on the information storage medium and reproduce information from each track by arranging the head slider close to the surface of the information storage medium while rotating the information storage medium.
With the rapid development of the computer technology, it becomes strongly required to develop a device comprising an information storage medium having higher recording density and the recording densities of information storage media put on the market yearly increase. Generally, as the recording density of the information storage medium becomes higher, it becomes necessary to set smaller the gap between the surface of the information storage medium and the head and it is further required to keep the gap constant in order to correctly record and reproduce information.
Recently, a disk device utilizing a contact slider system that slides a head while it is kept in contact with the surface of a rotating information storage medium to record and reproduce information is studied (for example, see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. H03-012801, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. H08-7511, and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. H04-034781). The disk device utilizing the above system is considered as a disk device that has high capability of writing and reading information and is suitable for an information storage medium with high recording density since the head is not separated from the surface of the information storage medium.
However, in the disk device in which the head and the information storage medium are set in direct contact with each other as in the above Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publications, the head is rubbed on the information storage medium that rotates at high speed and tends to be worn away and there occurs a problem that the recording/reproducing capability is reduced.